Women in venture capital

Women in venture capital or VC are investors Who Provide venture capital funding to startups . Women make up a small (usually less than 10%) fraction of the venture capital private equity workforce. A source Widely used for tracking the number of women in venture capital is the Midas List qui has-been published by Forbes since 2001. One of the first women to make the list, Annette Campbell-White, has-beens Cited as an example of discrimination in venture capital. She claimed that a number of firms in the 1980s ignored her senior management experience in Hambrecht & Quist . [1] [2]In addition to Findings That women make up the majorité of early technology adopters, [3] Harvard Business SchoolProfessor Paul Gompers HAS Stated That female venture capitalists Consistently perform as well as males at large firms That Have More than one woman. [4]

Questions about how to increase the number of VC opportunities for women. One of them is a lawsuit by Ellen Pao against her form employing Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers . Another is Elephant in the Valley , Tracy Vassallo, a former partner of the same firm. [5] Expressing criticism of existing funds, a number of women since 2007, have begun to start their own. [6]

Statistics

Babson College’s Diana Report, research by an initiative working to increase the number of women entrepreneurs, found that the number of women partners in VC firms declined from 10% in 1999 to 6% in 2014. The report also found that 97% of VC-funded businesses HAD male chief executives , and That businesses with all-male teams Were more than four times as Likely recevoir VC funding Compared to teams with at least one woman. [7]

More than 75% of VC firms in the US did not have any female venture capitalists at the time they were surveyed. [4] It was found that a greater fraction of VC firms had never had a woman represent them on the board of their portfolio companies . For comparison, a UC Davis study in California found 49.5% with at least one female board seat . [8] When the latter results were published, some San Jose Mercury News readers dismissed the possibility that sexism was a cause. In a follow-up Newsweek article, Nina Burleigh asked “Where were all these people?” Heidi Roizenpublished accounts of having a venture capitalist stick in his hand while in a table while a deal was discussed? ” [9] [10]

Effect on the technology industry

Makers of software and related products receive the majority of venture capital funding in the US. [11] [12] Since the dot com boom , venture capital has become almost synonymous with technology startups. [13] Regarding the shortage of women In Their industry, some venture capitalists-have called Expired this a Contributing Factor to similar gender disparity seen in a ‘wider ranks of Silicon Valley companies. [14]

These Silicon Valley leadership positions are largely held by Fenwick & West . This compares negatively to the 20.9% across all S & P 100 firms. These numbers drop to 11% and 16% respectively when considering executive positions. Industry scholar Vivek Wadhwa has proposed that another contributing factor is a lack of parental encouragement to study science and engineering. [15] He has also cited some of the most famous tech leaders – like Bill Gates , Steve Jobs , and Mark Zuckerberg – are men. [16]

2014 saw the release of several corporate transparency. The largest contributors were Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Apple, who reported 17%, [17] 15%, [18] 15%, [19] and 20% [20] of their tech employees were women. Subsequent commentary in USA Today pointed out that “women are underrepresented in Silicon Valley – from giant companies to venture capital firms.” [21] In October of that year, Bloomberg reported that Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft attended the 20th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computingfemale engineers and technology experts. [22] That same month, the second annual Platform Summit was held to increase the racial and gender diversity in tech. [23]

Notable boxes

The 2012 lawsuit Pao v. Kleiner Perkins was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by executive Ellen Pao for gender discrimination against her employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers . [24] The case went to trial in February 2015. On March 27, 2015 the jury found in favor of Kleiner Perkins on all counts. [25] Nevertheless, the case, which had wide press coverage, resulted in major advances in the perception of gender discrimination on the part of venture capital and technology firms and their women employees. [26] [27]Three later cases, including lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft. [28]

List of women in venture capital

Ellen Pao , who started her career at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , has also worked as an executive for Reddit , Flipboard and other technology companies. [29] [30] [31] [32] [33]